Time for Blogger's Quilt Festival!

Amy's doing it again - providing us with a wonderful online QUILT FESTIVAL with hundreds of quilts being shared by You.  I so look forward to seeing your entries.  Here's mine in the small quilt category:

When I saw Lorna's Elephant Parade's first block, I knew I had to make a baby quilt using it since my God Daughter in Law[who was expecting a baby] is from Thailand, and the elephant is the symbol of the nation.  I got busy finding the right fabrics from my stash. Then I had to wait til I knew if it was going to be a girl or boy before I picked something for the little elephant.  Then I realized that the block made an African elephant

and the Thai elephant is an Asian elephant. Off to do research - the Asian elephant has smaller ears and the female doesn't have tusks.  So I redid the mother elephant block and waited some more. It wasn't til the end of March that we learned there was a good chance it would be a girl. So I remade the baby elephant block.  I put the basic top together.  Now how was I going to incorporate more about Thailand in this quilt?  Here's what I did:

1. There is a lot of vegetation and jungle in Thailand, so I took the 1/2 yard of fabric left from the border, lined the back with fusible interfacing and cut out leaves to extend the motifs into the quilt.

They were ironed on and machine appliqued using invisible thread, a 60/8 needle and Bottom Line thread in the bottom. This took a while.  And Baby Saige arrived while I was doing that step.  Then I decided to quilt a temple into the sky left of the elephant -there are lots of temples in Thailand.  So going back on the NET, found some ruins, made a copy, hung it on a window and traced it onto that golden paper for quilters. 

 I then pinned it in place on the quilt and started outlining it. 

Then I decided to do some letter work and found "welcome" in Thai and did a bit of stencil thread work to write that on the quilt.

I wanted to place the baby's name also, but there just wasn't room. Above is just part of it.  It didn't show up very well, but Waen spotted it right away.  With all the rain Thailand gets in a year, straight lines in the borders seemed just right. More quilting - quilted the mother elephant and surrounding sky using FMQ and a bit of ruler work on her ear.

I was happy with my adapted version of Lorna's elephant quilt. It measured 37" square. And I was only three months late getting it to baby Saige. In case you want to vote for it in the Viewer's Choice competition, you can find it here for nominating now or voting next week.

Have you entered a quilt?  I hope so - off to see your creation there.  Thanks again, Amy, for bringing the show to us!

Spring BQF!

It's time for Amy's Creative Side' Blogger's Quilt Festival. The button is on the sidebar.  Here's my entry:

I consider myself a confident beginner in FMQ and I had fun trying different designs in the rectangles. I used Superior's So Fine Thread in both top and bobbin with a 80/12 needle.  I was so happy with how the Snow (#401) blended with all the colors in the fabrics. This was a quilt I made for my DGD who just turned five in April.  Just took me 2 1/2 years to finish, LOL.

Here's the busy back.  Lol, I'm not yet that confident of how a solid would look with my quilting:  

I'm entering this in the Home Machine Quilted category because I challenged myself to do more FMQ and this was my result of that challenge. Little by little!  Do visit the Blogger's Quilt Festival - you'll find a lot of inspiration there. 

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A BQF Entry for Fall, 2014

Time for one of the best quilt shows around - an online show that all can visit.  I enter not in hopes of winning, but to participate and share in the experience.  Here's my entry in the small quilts category - measures 27" square for Amy's Blogger's  Quilt Festival, 2014.

I used several techniques in this quilt.  First, the hexagon flowers on green top was given to me by a friend who got it from another friend.  After languishing in my UFO pile I decided it needed to be finished.  So I machine appliqued it to the background with a straight stitch and a walking foot.  I then decided the flowers needed leaves so I raw edge appliqued the leaves onto the top.   I hadn't a clue how to approach quilting hexagons, but after reading Karen's posts on quilting hexagons at Faeries and Fibres  I jumped into quilting it.  You know that old adage:  fools rush in.....  It's not near as good as Karen, but if I don't practice, no progress will be made is my philosophy.
Here's the back before I bound it:

And a closer look at the front:

Have you entered a quilt?  Would love to see what you've done this year. Thank you Amy and Karen for enriching my quilting endeavors.

Blogger's Quilt Festival and a Hexie or two...

Today starts Amy's Spring edition of her fabulous Blogger's Quilt Festival!  This is an opportunity to be part of one of the biggest Show and Tell collections on the NET, and there are prizes! Click above or on my sidebar to go visit and see the wonderful entries from quilters all over the world.

I'm entering the latest quilt I've finished - a quilt I was commissioned to make to honor a long time volunteer at the Library.  It's a signature quilt:

Library Volunteer Extraordinaire measures 52" square, so I'll be entering it in the Festival category for Small Quilts.  I designed this in EQ4 (yep, that's all I have) using a roman stripe square and a Jacob's ladder square. I've used this pattern once before for another signature quilt.  You can see it here.  At the Gala when it will presented, guests will have the opportunity to sign the quilt in the white strips.  If there are more than 48 wanting to sign, the writing shows up fine on the green strips also.  I made this with fabric from Connecting Threads collection called Fiesta and designed by Jenni Calo.  Dorothy loves flowers and blue so thought this would please her.

 I quilted the quilt after watching Cindy Needham's Crafsy Class Design it, Quilt it: Free Form Techniques.    It was great and gave me the confidence to do the quilt with more than SITD and stippling. For the most part I used Superior invisible thread on top and Bottom Line/or Invisifil on the back with a 70/10 sharp needle.

I was really worried about what I should do about the center of the quilt and the fabric photo I used of our library. Once again, you quilters in blog land answered my plea for what to do with the floppy fabric after I had stipplied around it. Thank you! You can see more of the quilting on my post of 5/12.

Then I made the label.  I was going to put it on the right back corner, but is seemed to stand out so much, and after consulting with my daughter, decided to place it on the stripe.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you consider entering a quilt.  I'd love to see your eye candy! So click on the link after you've read the rest of this post - you might win a prize!

And now for hexies - I do a linky for Hexie Weekends that starts on Fridays. This is to keep me motivated to work on my hexies and see all the goodies other Hexie enthusiasts are working on. Since I've been working on the above quilt for three weeks, I had stopped posting as I regularly do.  Now I can start again!

Here's where I'm at right now:

I'm starting another hexie project using 3/4" hexagons.  They may sound small but the ones I was working on before were 1/2"- LOL.  Don't know what I'm going to do with these yet, but with all your inspiration, I'll think of something.  So do link if you have a hexie project you're working on, have finished, or dream of doing.  Linky below. And for more eye candy overload there is Amanda Jean's finish.

An InLinkz Link-up

Bring on the Candy!

Eye Candy that is!

 

It's time for Amy's Fabulous Blogger's Quilt Festival! While others have Quilt Market to go to, we that can't get there, have all the eye candy we could want to see at BQF. I find more wonderful quilting blogs to visit every time I attend, whether I participate or not.  Thank you so much, Amy!

 

My entry this year is a small item and picked, not in hopes of winning a prize, but to show a new technique I learned.  Here is my Christmas table topper.  I made this from a pattern created by Cheryl Phillips of  Phillips Fiber Art  .  I don't think I would have tried this without her wedge tool and excellent directions.  And it only took a few Christmas scraps from my stash! It measures 18" round.

Look forward to seeing a quilt of yours at Blogger's Quilt Festival.

It's Here! - BQF

One of my favorite things, and it falls on a friday (Yeah!) is the Bloggers' Quilt Festival.  Talk about eye candy!!  I have found some of my favorite blogs while viewing all who post on it. And she has wonderful giveaways!  It's like attending a virtual quilt show.  My coverlet is my entry for this year.  This quilt started as a cotton curtain I bought at a yard sale - and it's the back of the quilt.  I loved the design I didn't want to cut it up. So decided to make a medallion quilt for the front.  And it just built from their.  I have that one 18" dresden plate for the center and as I went along I decided what each row would be next.  This turned out to be a quilt as you go with the curtain as the solid back and I added things to it by the sew and flip method.  It's a summer cover for my bed so it has no batting.  The nine patches were from a guild swap we did for a whole year.  It makes a colorful spot in my bedroom.

Want to drown in eye candy?  Click on the banner on top left to be transported to quilt heaven.  And if you want to participate, click on Amy's tab at the top of her page for the BQF to see what's involved.  Enjoy!

Blog Fall Festival Oct 29, 2011

Isn't it wonderful that it's time for another Blogger Festival?  Thank you, Amy, for bringing so much eye candy our way and the goodies!!  Oh,my!                         This is a Blue Star Service banner wall hanging I made for one of our friends.  At one time she had 3 sons in the Army, and one in the Navy (she has six sons).  Now there is one - he's a Colonel and a Doctor still in service to his country.  Go over to Amy's Festival and feast your eyes on all the beautiful quilts on display.  The button is on my right sidebar and here below.

Blogger's Quilt Festival is here!

This is the most wonderful eye candy that comes to us semi-annually from Amy.  I guarantee you will see a lot of great quilts to admire and inspire.  And there's a bunch of yummy giveaways too!

Here's my entry:  Rescued Log
   I went to a yard sale close by and found they were selling a bag of fabric for $10.  It was a large bag.  In there with all the yardage was this partial quilt that looked like it had been cut up  for use as something else.  Two sides had jagged edges.  I loved the colors so I bought the whole bag.  I took the quilt apart and had about 13 blocks.  I used four of them to repair 4 others that needed bringing up to size.  They were already quilted, so I decided to put them back together as a Quilt as you Go quilt.  My daughter-in-law in Colorado had admired the blocks and when it was done, I sent it to her for her birthday.  She is very happy with it.  And I'm happy I was able to salvage someone's log cabin.

See all the other quilts at Amy's Creative Side post for her Blogger Quilt Festival.  You'll be glad you did!

My entry in the Fall Blogger's Quilt Festival

Amy is at it again and providing us with the largest display of quilts on the Net and prizes too!  Above is my entry. I call it Bullseye Blossoms.  I took part in an online swap of bullseye blocks.  These are pieced with raw edges.  In making the bullseye, I had a lot of circles left over from cutting out the backs of the blocks. I saved these wondering what I would do with them.  When my blocks came back from the swap and I laid them out I realized I wanted a bigger quilt.  So I pulled out those circles and drew a flowering template and cut our the blossoms you see on the center.  The entire quilt is scrappy except for the borders which came from my stash.  I quilted it as a Quilt as You Go and really like how it turned out.

To see more quilts or enter your own, go to Amy's website to join the Blogger's Quilt Festival or just see some beautiful quilts!